


far from the mind

by CaptainRivaini



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, F/F, Female Character of Color, Female Characters, Femslash, Femslash February, Gen, eleanor is sad and max is mad, i want them to kiss and make up but i cannot write that, sorry world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3273617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place immediately after Anne has returned to Jack, Max is alone looking out her room and sees a familiar figure hunched over on the bridge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	far from the mind

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so sad about max/eleanor i want them to run away and have a thousand puppy dogs whoops

Max didn’t like the quiet. It was a companion that was too silent, left her to think for too long, her worst enemy and the friend that teased comfort and only offered knives in her back when it was turned.

It reminded her too much of all the time she had to spare back when she had been camped with Vane’s old crew, on the beach, sand and grime in between her toes.

She didn’t want to remember that silence any longer, and now that Anne had left? Perfect time to get dressed and find the mindlessly consuming noise of Nassau that was always present, you just needed to find it. And Max? Max was good at finding things, the darkest of secrets, the silliest of truths, everything and anything.

What she did find as she walked over to her windowed door, eyes dark and searching and her heart missing a beat, was a hunched figure whom she recognized to be none other than Eleanor Guthrie.

A short time ago (though it felt like years) Max would have crept her way across that bridge towards her, a smile on her face and her fingers eager to trace comforting circles on Eleanor’s wrist. A soothing gesture, one full of love and concern that had always eaten at her whenever she saw how tired her once lover had looked.

Now she still crept, but instead of warmth and love Max only felt a fierce repulsion that made her skin crawl and her limbs ache. Eleanor had hurt her in the worst way and her body responded to that knowledge, but what it also responded to was the memories they shared, the looks, the touches, the kisses.  _Everything_. 

It made the smile on her face the moment she stepped beside Eleanor sharp, or so she would have liked to think, eager to know if that was the reason why Eleanor started when she turned her head and saw Max looking right back at her.

"Fuck off," Eleanor spat, placing a lone strand of blonde curls behind her ear and staring defiantly out over her kingdom. If that was what Eleanor saw it as, but the problem was, in Max’s opinion, that this kingdom was made from sand and when the sea came in? Everyone knew what relationship sand and sea had.

Max smiled defiantly in response to the heated outburst - everyone knew, but Eleanor Guthrie.

"You risk a great deal in stepping out ‘ere," Max whispered, cocking her head to the side to address Eleanor with a slight shake of her head. "I ‘eard what ‘appened to O’Malley today. I’m…" She paused, watching Eleanor turn angry, red-rimmed eyes towards her, wondering if she dared go where to a place she had been exiled from. But then, she decided, she didn’t truly care. "I’m sorry for your loss, ‘e was a good man and ‘e did not deserve ‘is fate."

The sound of raucous laughter filled the silence, the nightlight of Nassau inspiring a confidence within Max that she wrapped around her like a cloak, protecting herself from the darkness. It was also particularly useful in defying the cold stare that she was given by Eleanor, but that had been expected after she had sold information to Captain Low.

Regardless, she masked her surprise when Eleanor’s answer was soft, low and a total contrast to the tight grip she had on the bridge’s rotting wooden railing.

"Not many people deserve a fate like like that," Eleanor’s baby blues held a fire in them that said she wasn’t just speaking theoretically, she clearly had a point to make. It was very much like Eleanor after all, to have a point, an inferno that threatened to spin out of control, and yet not have the strength to just open her mouth and  _say_  it.

Max wanted to roll her eyes in disdain. Oh how very like Eleanor Guthrie to not say anything that mattered.

"Some do," Max found herself arguing back, not knowing why but her anger at Eleanor felt like someone had pulled her back into another time where only hurt was the certainty she was rewarded with. Hamund, for example, had deserved to go against a monster like Ned Low. She would even dare to say that she would have enjoyed watching him die so slowly, so painfully. He deserved it after all, didn’t he?

Some deserved to die the way O’Malley had. 

Max swallowed any urge to offer any more consolations to the woman next to her, removing herself from where she stood so closely to Eleanor on the bridge in order to make her way back to her room. Standing next to Eleanor was exhausting enough, never mind talking to her. She was a mess of contradictions, she realized. A part of her wanted to talk to Eleanor truthfully, to tell her what she really wanted to say, but a larger, noisier part begged to differ. There was simply nothing more to say.

"Goodnight Madame Guthrie," Max whispered, her voice clipped and colder than the piercing wind that hit at herself and Eleanor both. "It is late, and perhaps it would be best for us to both retire."

Max didn’t get to her door before she heard the sound of Eleanor’s laughter, loud, rebellious and enough to cause Max pause in retreating to her room entirely.

"Why did you even come out here to talk to me?"

A question, a good one, a question that Max has no answer to.

Max’s only answer was a smile, bittersweet and ruthless.

She remembered a time when she had wanted an answer from Eleanor too, but silence had been the only outcome. Her only heartbreaking outcome.

Max wondered if it tasted as sour on Eleanor’s tongue as it had tasted on hers that sunny afternoon, Eleanor’s fingers slipping through hers.


End file.
